Coffee & Tea Repair Damaged Skin

Posted: 01/22/07

0

Like a snake oil salesman with cure-alls and spiritual remedies, BioMed Central recently claimed that green tea has medicinal powers too. In the report recently released by the London-based biomedical firm, green tea extract was found to help heal skin damaged from radiation therapy.

The report, released in December of last year, found the majority of test subjects who applied green tea extract over skin damaged by radiotherapy saw significant skin improvement. The success rate may be due to the powerful extracts green tea releases.

“The thinking is that green tea contains polyphenols - black tea does as well, but green tea may contain more,” said Dr. Emily Senay in a recent interview.

Senay, a graduate of New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine and longtime anchor of the Medical News Network, said the study conducted on 60 people found that after 16 days, the people who applied the green tea extract saw some skin improvement, while the people who applied black tea to the affected areas saw improvement after 22 days – six days longer than green tea. Just imagine the results if they tested it on more than 60 people for more than a month.

But tea isn’t the only thing working to improve the look of skin nowadays. Coffee powder from green coffee beans has been shown to provide antioxidant benefits as well - but people have known that for years it seems.

For generations Russian bathhouses have been using coffee as a natural antioxidant and astringent. Anti-oxidants play an important role in fighting off free radicals, according to scientists at Scranton University. Left to their own devices, free radicals would attack and kill cells – thus speeding up the aging process.